


and amidst the bitterness

by metonymy



Series: Boys in Black and Blue [3]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman (Movies - Nolan), Batman - All Media Types, Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Non-graphic depictions of violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-01
Updated: 2014-01-01
Packaged: 2018-01-06 23:48:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1112953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/metonymy/pseuds/metonymy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Barbara Gordon has always wanted to do everything herself. But now that she's back in Gotham, dealing with her estranged father and the intriguing John Blake is a lot to handle. Adding in a serial killer and a new face of vigilante justice? She's always enjoyed a challenge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and amidst the bitterness

Barbara Gordon wants to do everything herself.

It started when she was little, wriggling out of her high chair, trying to follow her brother everywhere before her pudgy baby legs could hold her up. Refusing a sippy cup and spilling juice all over. Learning to read before the age of three, through what her grandmother called sheer blessed cussedness. Climbing the monkey bars when she was still too little and almost breaking her neck.

When the bad night happened, the one her mother doesn't talk about, the one that still gives her brother nightmares, the part Barbara hated the most was that there wasn't anything she could do. She could have screamed, drawn Dent's attention, thrown something to hit his arm, tackled his legs to ruin his shot. The options played in her mind for months afterward as she stared at the ceiling instead of sleeping. But her mother held her too tight and told her to stay quiet and Barbara couldn't do a damn thing.

She didn't want that to happen ever again. 

Let her be killed, let her be broken, but let her at least _try._

It wasn't like her mother was going to object, anyway, when Barbara decided she wanted to learn how to fight back. Not like a cop, not like her father (ineffective and useless and failure, the words her mother repeated in whispered conversations over the phone). Just a girl standing up for herself, a girl who didn't want to be afraid anymore. A girl who didn't want to stand back. So she took lessons in everything anyone would teach her, fitting it in around the homeschooling and the gymnastics she refused to give up. It wasn't that she was turning her body into a weapon. It was that she was taking that space back. Barbara wasn't going to let anybody tell her what she couldn't do. Not anymore.

And when she took that same fight to her mother, when she'd graduated younger than everybody else in her class and told Mom that she was going back to Gotham, Barbara was faintly surprised when her mother objected. The city wasn't anything she couldn't handle. Cleveland wasn't exactly a safe haven with a zero percent crime rate. And Barbara knew enough by the time she lands back in Gotham to take care of herself.

It's not that she goes looking for trouble, exactly. She doesn't linger in bad neighborhoods wearing impractical shoes and flashing cash so she can lure petty criminals in and then crack their skulls together. She doesn't pretend to have a flat tire or a broken heel and take advantage of the men who would take advantage of her perceived weakness.

But sometimes it's tempting. Sometimes when she reads about whether the city still needs Batman, about a successor taking his place, when Dad comes home with hunched shoulders and a furrowed brow and won't tell her that they lost an officer that day, she wants to try it. To put on her own mask and head out into the night and stop bad things from happening.

But who ever heard of a vigilante on a purple scooter?

Nobody, is who, so she keeps her head down most days. She goes to classes, to her internship at the main branch of the city library, and back home. She fits in visits to the gym around study sessions; an old friend of hers is coaching while he's putting himself through police academy. Dick is the same sweet guy he always was, with the same winning smile - and okay, with a really spectacular ass - but he never pushes her for anything except maybe considering teaching a tumbling class or two. The kids love him, but she's not sure they'd feel the same way about her. 

Besides, somewhere around the edges of her life she's trying to start a relationship, and that takes up more than enough mental real estate as it is. John Blake is hard for her to pin down - not that she's literally tried that, though she's fantasized about it a few times. She learns about him in fits and starts, the man who saved her father, the one who brought the cops out from underground, who got closer than maybe anyone else to the Batman. When they start dating she can tell he thinks it's a little odd, that she's too young for him, that he shouldn't be anywhere near Gordon's daughter. She isn't sure how to tell him that she feels the same way, that she knows better than to get involved with a cop, that he must have seen so much more than she ever will. 

It takes her forever to put it together, and when she does she wants to laugh about it even though they're at his favorite diner and surrounded by people. Years in between, her dad introducing the hero of the occupation, and she'd already met him before.

She had been visiting her dad from Cleveland, spring break wrested as a concession from her mother and her caution and her fear of Gotham, and he'd gone down to headquarters even though he was taking vacation because of course he was never really off the clock. He was a cop, he was a good cop, and he wanted to protect the city.

Funny how that sounds now, years later.

She'd wanted to do something nice for him and realized he hadn't brought lunch, so she made it for him and went down to the precinct and smiled her way in. Henderson was working the desk, he remembered her from the old days and called her Barbie and let her in, and Barbara was on her way down the long corridor that always looked blue-green like it was underwater when she had to dodge and spin out of the way of a very determined and very green recruit.

"Sorry - sorry, miss," he'd said, and hustled down the hallway with the tips of his ears burning red, and she'd tucked a stray bit of hair back into her bun and went to find her father's office. It wasn't where she remembered it being; he'd moved up in the world.

Now John is sitting across from her, favoring one shoulder - he says it was from a game of football with the kids at the Home that got a little rowdy - and giving her that shy, slow smile. His dimples are peeking out again; they look utterly ridiculous on a grown man, which makes them all the more endearing. Some part of her just wants to climb over the table and wrap herself around him, and Barbara thinks sternly at her hormones that they need to calm down. There are still three chapters of reading and a response paper to write when she gets home, and she won't have time tomorrow because she's finally given in to Grayson's requests and is covering intermediate tumbling at the gym. But she wants to be irresponsible for once.

For now, though, she steals a bite of his pie and laughs at the pout he gives her, and when he drives her home she kisses him for a long, long time. 

It's hard to keep her head down and pretend she doesn't notice things, though. Her dad's bringing files home again, though he covers them up when she brings him a cup of tea after dinner. Dad doesn't even like tea, but she wants to at least pretend she's helping, and she can't let him drink black coffee straight through all night. The legal aftermath of the occupation and the breakouts from Blackgate are bad enough without the growing movement to overturn the Dent Act. The mobs are reforming under the radar, what's left of them after the Joker and Bane. There are rumors in the paper about vigilantes following in the footsteps of the Batman, taking the law into their own hands, and she's sure that's what he's researching off the clock. Her dad knew the Batman, met him, and Barbara is almost positive he knew who the man was behind the mask. 

She's sure of it the night she overhears him talking to someone about how the Bat-signal has been fixed. It's a shadow in her memory, the outline against the clouds that always seemed to hang over Gotham at night. So why is it back? He's dead. The city has raised a memorial to him. And yet it sounds like someone's taking up that mantle, in spite of the fact that it killed the last man to shoulder its burden. There are rumors that he's been seen again, but it's just an impostor like those amateurs who went around in hockey pads, she figures. It has to be. It's not like a solitary vigilante who fancied himself an avenger of darkness would choose a successor.

Barbara has to make herself forget about all of this for a couple of weeks, because midterms are coming up and she has a cataloguing project that makes her want to set fire to the entire public library system, and she barely makes it to classes and work and back to her computer without dying. She sends John a few quick texts but he seems unworried that she's busy, which is actually a relief, and she promises to see him when they hit fall break. There may also be a promise in there to make up for her neglect by teaching a tumbling class at the Wayne Home, but she sort of forgets about it. There's just a big blue flag on her calendar for the Friday when she hands in her project and takes her last test and has four glorious days off, starting with a date with John. 

Their reunion isn't dramatic; they don't run down the street towards each other, she just meets him at a restaurant near the college campus. They sit for hours over their plates of noodles and dumplings, tea cooling in their cups as Barbara talks about her classes and coaxes John to talk about how things are going at the Wayne home. Finally they leave and stand on the sidewalk, and she shivers in the October chill. 

"I'd take you out for a nightcap, but then I'd be corrupting the youth," John says. He scratches at the back of his neck, not looking at her. "Or you could come over to my place and we wouldn't have to bribe any bouncers." Which is not what he's really asking, and they both know it. But John's never going to be the type who's that brutally direct, not when it comes to relationship junk. So Barbara just smiles and tells him she'd like that, and as he's driving back she texts her dad and tells him not to wait up, and then puts her phone on silent because she is an adult and she really does not want to hear whatever her dad thinks about this development.

John's building isn't in the best part of town, but it's not the Narrows, and most of the street lights still work. Barbara follows him up the stairs to the apartment and waits as he opens the door, glancing around while he locks it back up behind them. The typical empty bachelor pad, though thankfully cleaner than the sort of place kept by her peers; no beer-can pyramids, no posters of big-breasted models. If it weren't for a Rogues scarf draped over the back of a chair, it would be almost devoid of personality. And that makes her feel almost sorry for him, which she definitely doesn't want, so when he clears his throat and she turns back around to look at him she can't think of anything to do besides step close and pull him down for a kiss. His back thuds against the door and his hands come up, brushing over her elbows as if he's going to pull her away, then settling on her shoulders. 

"Fuck," he says, looking a little stunned.

"What?" she asks. God, she hopes he isn't having second thoughts or deciding he can't do this with her because she's too young or a Gordon or - one of those slow smiles starts.

"I was going to ask if you maybe wanted to spend the night," he admits, and the tips of his ears are turning red and it is a little adorable. 

"You can still ask," she says, trying for sultry and hoping it doesn't come out as awkward. John combs his fingers through the hair at her temple, still smiling. 

"Hey, Barbara. Wanna sleep over?"

"Only if you promise to make me breakfast." Then she tugs him down for another kiss, his jacket soft in her hands. Barbara really appreciates that he just lets them stay there, doesn't push her around, especially that he doesn't pick her up. He just kisses her till she's sure he's developed a mighty crick in his neck and smiles softly when she pulls back. "Bedroom?" she asks, and he hangs up his jacket and takes her hand and leads her down the hall. She tosses her own coat on the couch as they pass it. Inside the bedroom door she helps him pull off his sweater, then leaves him to take off his button-down while she pulls her own sweater over her head. 

He turns off the light before he starts to pull the undershirt over his head, but there's enough light through the blinds for her to notice the bruises all over his torso. She winces at the splotches across his chest, from angry dark circles to fading welters of yellow and green. "Jesus, John, what the hell happened? Are you in some kind of fight club?"

"Mixed martial arts," he says, sounding abashed. She walks her fingers up his ribs, barely touching the skin, and she can see the muscles of his stomach clench in reaction. 

"Are you - you're okay for this? I'm not going to hurt you?"

He laughs for once and pulls her in, hands sneaking up under the hem of her camisole. "Unless you're into the rough stuff, we're good." John walks back till he bumps against the mattress and sits, pulling her down - she straddles his lap and cups his face in her hands. From here she can count every line around his eyes, too many for his age, so she kisses them instead until she has to pull away to let him draw the camisole over her head. She knows there's not much there, and certainly no bruises, but his hands touch her skin with gentleness and care anyway. He kisses her throat and her collarbone and rests his lips against her chest, just holding her for a moment, and she settles her hands on his shoulders. For all that she's been waiting for this for weeks it still feels oddly peaceful. 

Finally, though, he pulls back enough to look up at her, a question in his eyes, and Barbara reaches back to unclasp her bra. Things stay slow and unhurried; she's not sure if it's because he's tentative or she's nervous or just that they're trying to take their time, but it's lovely all the same. He's gentle and considerate and keeps asking if they're okay, and part of her wants to just flip him over and have her wicked way with him, but mostly she is really enjoying it, so she pulls him down for another kiss and contents herself with nipping at his neck as he starts to move. That can wait for next time. This time is all about learning each other, the places to touch and kiss and the words to say and the way it feels when she's falling asleep beside him.

The next morning she wakes up before he does. She resists the urge to snoop through his apartment in favor of staying in the warm bed with his arm flung over her. When he wakes up his first reaction is to pull back his arm and bolt upright, like he's late for something, and she looks up at him through her hair quizzically.

John settles back down and pulls her close, brushing his lips against hers in the lightest of kisses. "Sorry."

"Good morning," she says back, sliding her hand over his hip. He put his boxers back on at some point, and his undershirt - she thinks she remembers him getting up in the middle of the night - and her hand sneaks under the ribbed cotton. "Going somewhere?

"Not yet," he says, his hand warm against her naked back. "Just... I'm not used to waking up with anyone here." 

"It's okay," she says. Her thumb strokes tiny circles against his hip, that ridge of muscle that juts out and makes her want to lick it. Round two would be nice, but so would just lying here and letting him pet her back. Besides, it's a good idea to get him used to having her around, because she has no intention of going anywhere. Metaphorically.

Her eyes slide shut, and she considers letting herself drift off to sleep again when he shifts under her. "I seem to remember something about making you breakfast," he says. This time she can almost hear the smile, and she shifts upward to kiss him again. 

"Breakfast sounds good," she answers, and watches shamelessly as he gets up and leaves the room. Once he's gone she drags herself out of bed and filches one of his shirts from the closet. It isn't till after she's buttoning it up that she realizes it's his old police uniform shirt, the navy dark against her skin, but she shrugs and decides to go with it.

When she gets to the kitchen John has a startling array of ingredients on the counter. The coffeemaker is burbling away next to the stove. "Fancy," she says, and he looks up from where he's whisking something in a bowl and stares at her. After a long moment he swallows and gives her a smile. 

"What were you expecting, pop tarts?"

"Not pancakes," she says, coming over. He puts down the whisk and leans in to kiss her, resting his hand at the small of her back again. It's maybe a little possessive. Barbara isn't sure she minds.

"Most mornings I eat cereal. Some nights, too." The smile he gives her is a little sheepish. "But guests, well."

"Guests get pancakes," she says with a grin, and he laughs softly before turning back to the mixing bowl. 

When she finally makes it home, after breakfast and syrup-sticky kisses and a drive across town, Barbara can't help being relieved that her dad's not there. That's a conversation she's not looking forward to having at any time ever. But it looks like he was called out in a hurry, judging by the coffeepot that's cooked down into sludge and the folders still spread across the table, and she can't resist. She really can't. All information should be pursued and catalogued, even secrets. Keeping things buried and never talking about them only lets them fester, lets them become nightmares for scaring children. 

There are charts in the files, names she vaguely recognizes from the papers, mobsters slowly gathering power to themselves again. Maps of the city with borders drawn over in highlighter. And then, at the bottom of the pile, a blurry photograph that must have come from a security camera. It's mostly dark, but there's a pale shape that could be a face bisected by some sort of mask, light reflecting where the eyes should be. Not the same cowl she remembers from that terrifying night, and no cape that she can make out in the fuzz. Barbara trails a finger over the sharp angle of the jaw, the indistinct chevron in what could be blue or gray or something slightly lighter across the chest, and she wonders.

She wonders even more when she turns on the television after showering and putting on clean clothes and sees a scrum of news cameras and microphones surrounding Dad on the steps of City Hall. The ticker along the bottom tells her that somebody named Moxon is dead along with three others. Barbara goes back to the folders and there's the name again, a minor gang leader who was formerly under the Falcone family's heading, details written out in her father's strong slanting capitals. If there's a new Batman on the streets, is he responsible? This seems awfully brutal as a way of quelling the potential surge in organized crime. 

But Dad doesn't want to talk about it, and before she knows it she's getting on a plane back to Cleveland. Barbara has arguments ready to go about not wanting to interrupt her schoolwork and not wanting to leave her dad alone again for Thanksgiving, but he gives her an infinitely tired look through his glasses and tells her she should go. He's already bought the ticket. She hates that, having him try to control her, but she's going to let him have this one. John's going to be dishing up stuffing at the Wayne Home, and she promises to call him while she's gone.

Her mother hugs her hard when she gets off the plane and doesn't mention Barbara's dad at all, not through making pie and mashing potatoes. Not till Jimmy goes to bed, and Barbara's working on her reading for class and Mom's halfway through her second glass of wine. 

"Is he taking care of you?"

Barbara looks up, puzzled. She hasn't really mentioned John and as far as she can remember her mom isn't psychic. "Who?"

"Your father." The gesture with the wine glass is incomprehensible, but none of it spills. "Jimmy was always his favorite. Must be hard, you being there instead."

And there it is, laid bare in front of her: the fear and guilt and envy that lay underneath her childhood. No child should have to feel bad about not having a crazed killer try to off her. But it's not rational, it's not logical, it's some wounded tiny part of her that still thinks her father didn't love her best.

"You're drunk, Mom," Barbara says, and hates how defensive her voice sounds. How small and weak. Like she's never grown past being that scared little girl. She gets up and leaves the room, and they don't talk about it. Barbara carries that bruise back with her to Gotham. John asks on the phone how it went and she says it was fine. Dad asks how her trip was and she says it was fine. Neither of them ask any more questions or press for details. Some investigators, she thinks bitterly. Gotham's finest.

The end of the semester comes in a whirl of snow flurries and papers and losing track entirely of daylight hours. Dick starts sending her pictures of cute animals with texts full of emoticons urging her to remember to sleep and eat. John texts her erratically. She and her dad share meals occasionally but both of them are too wrapped up in their work to really talk. There was another murder at Thanksgiving while she was away, another gangster with ties to the old power elite that's trying to take back what it had. 

And more sightings of this new vigilante. 

They're starting to call him the Nightwing, after some old comic book. A sidekick of Superman or something, she doesn't quite remember. Most of the footage is just as indistinct as the picture she saw in her dad's files, and an artist's interpretation of a menacing figure with a sharp jaw and nothing but darkness where the eyes should be. Barbara doesn't think about it much until finals are over and she sleeps for fifteen hours and emerges to start thinking about Christmas shopping. But it's hard to avoid when her dad keeps poring over files and leaving them everywhere and she can't help seeing and remembering everything. It's just how her mind works - retaining information, putting it together. Drawing conclusions. 

And asking questions she shouldn't. 

They're eating dinner with the news on, sound muted and the latest report about the vigilante flashing across the screen. Her dad sits across the tiny table from her, in this sad little apartment that she's tried to brighten up to no success. Even the Christmas cactus is drooping. 

"You don't think it's weird that this new Batman wannabe shows up at the same time mobsters start dropping dead?" 

Dad sets down his fork and knife, neatly, and looks over at her. The light reflects off his glasses for a moment and she can't see his eyes. "Give up the Nancy Drew act, Babs," he says, inscrutable as a statue. She swallows down every retort: it's not an act, she's trying to help, she's been trying since she was a little girl and Harvey Dent pointed a gun at her brother's head. But she's still that same little girl to her father. And he'll never stop trying to protect her. He'll never see her as an adult who can help. As someone who can do something instead of hiding in her mother's arms.

Barbara doesn't put it in quite those terms to John, though. She shouldn't even talk about the case to him. But he's a former cop. And when she comes back from spending Christmas with her mom and Jimmy - another series of strained, awkward silences and sullen glances and enforced holiday cheer - she can't help asking what John thinks of these targeted killings. Because another gangster was killed, this time trussed up with twinkling lights, and the police are completely flummoxed.

"You don't think it's a little creepy?" she asks, over an illicit beer. "That there's a new Batman and the mobsters are being killed off?"

John's jaw tightens. "The Batman didn't kill."

"Yeah, but the old one died over the harbor. Whoever this copycat is might have different rules."

Barbara would swear John nearly growls, and that in itself is fascinating. "Then they wouldn't deserve the mantle." 

"So you think it has to be someone else," she replies, swinging her feet into his lap. "Another one of the mobsters?"

"They have the motivation. And the means." 

"I just think it's too odd to be a coincidence, that's all." It's a bad idea to keep pushing this, she can tell; there's a little muscle jumping in his jaw, his shoulders are tight now too. But Barbara never did know when to let something drop. 

"Anybody who took up that mask would have to have the same rules."

"You don't think it's just another copycat, but with better resources?"

The look John gives her is dark and strange and a little troubled. "I hope not," he says.

And something about the lines around his eyes makes her give it up for the time being, drawing her legs back and shifting over to curl against his side. John knows as well as she does that she's not dropping the subject entirely, but he accepts the change and asks if she's seen any good movies lately, wrapping his arm around her shoulders. 

Still, it's a little bit of a relief when she tells him she's going to spend New Year's Eve with her dad at a party. Not quite a gala, but definitely fancy, thrown by the new mayor and her staff to prove there's no danger of the bad old days returning. A new start, a new year, all the superstition even the most rational people indulge in at this season. Barbara puts on a sparkly purple party dress and plasters on a smile and tries not to think longingly of John's couch and borrowing his sweatpants and drinking cheap champagne. 

There's something about the evening that has her on edge, though, and she sticks to ginger ale and tries to figure out what's bothering her so much. The false gaiety, maybe, the way her father is like a dog with hackles raised and a barely restrained growl. The way the wall of windows onto the harbor makes the whole room feel too exposed. Maybe it's just that her feet hurt in these heels.

The boom of the fireworks still comes as a shock, even though the whole room was counting down. And then she sees it, pushing past the spectators to look out over the water, where the barge that held the fireworks is now ablaze.

"That wasn't supposed to happen," she says, catching her dad's sleeve. In the dark glass of the window he blanches, then whirls. Gasps and screams start to drown out the band. Her father is already halfway out the room.

Barbara knows she should wait here, or go home, or something. Stay out of the way. But she has to know what the hell happened, and she dashes after him, weaving through the crowd and barely slowing down when someone spills their champagne down her arm.

"Dad!" she calls, and he stops.

"No, Babs."

"Don't just leave me here," she says, and it doesn't come out as a whine but a harsh command. When he turns to look at her there's a strange expression on his face. Pride, maybe. Not that that makes any sense. 

"I can't bring you to an active crime scene in the middle of the harbor," he says wearily, in spite of that light in her eyes.

"I'm getting in the damn car, and you can either drop me at home or not waste the time," she says, striding past him and lifting his keys out of his pocket. He takes them back, but he doesn't stop her from getting in the car.

That doesn't give her a way to get on the boat heading out to the barge, though, and Barbara finds herself shivering on the docks watching the fire boat shoot jets of water at the flames. She calls John, but there's no answer. Hell of a way to start a new year, she thinks.

When her dad finally comes back to shore, he tells her to head back home without him. And she hears the name Falcone muttered by another cop, and the pieces are falling into place as she starts the car and drives to John's apartment. He was a detective for a little while, he can talk out these mob killings with her and the pattern that's become all too obvious and what new psychopath thought it was a good idea to ruin every holiday on the calendar.

The building door is propped open - probably to let people up to the party she can still hear raging on the first floor - but John's not answering the door, so Barbara jimmies the lock and lets herself in. It's quiet and dark, no sign of him. Except his closet looks like it's been ransacked. Strange. Barbara strips out of her party clothes and makes a halfhearted pass at wiping the makeup off her face, then pulls on one of John's undershirts and wraps herself in a blanket and goes to wait on the couch. She turns on the 24-hour news to keep her company, but they know less than she does at this point.

The acrid scent of smoke wakes her up. John's there, dark smudges around his eyes as he kneels next to the couch. "Hey," he murmurs, voice husky. 

"Hi. Happy new year," she answers automatically, blinking awake. The only light comes from the flickering television. "I let myself in. Hope that's okay." 

John brushes a bit of hair out of her face. "Yeah. Don't remember giving you a key, though." 

"You weren't here." It's not meant as an accusation, just an explanation, but his ears get red and he looks away. 

"Something came up with an old friend," he says finally. Barbara knows immediately that it's the biggest lie he's ever told her. He can't even look at her when he says it. "C'mon, get into bed, I'll meet you there." He kisses her forehead before straightening up, and she can hear the shower running before she even makes it off the couch. The news channel now has a graphic along the bottom for the Holiday Killer. She switches it off.

When John gets into bed beside her he smells like soap and cotton, and Barbara's already halfway asleep as he puts his arm over her waist. She'll ask about the smoke in the morning, she thinks to herself. 

But in the morning she has a phone buzzing off the nightstand till it hits the floor, and Dick is wondering if she's coming to the New Year's Day party at the gym, and her father is absolutely furious, and Barbara is running out the door in heels and too-big sweatpants before she even has time to think about it. It's not till she's halfway home in her father's car that she remembers what she wanted to say to John. And her party dress is still on his bedroom floor. Dammit.

Barbara stews for a while over what she should do. As the days slip by it seems harder and harder to just say it. Like the next time she's over at his apartment, she should just blurt out _I think you're this Nightwing guy_ and see what he does? That feels like the height of stupidity. But it's not like she has any better ideas. 

As it happens, though, she doesn't need to come up with any alternatives. She stayed late at the gym to help Dick clean up and insisted she didn't need to be walked home, trusting streetlights and street smarts to get her home safely. Then she heard the echoes of footsteps just a half-beat off from her own, herding her faster, until a pair of leering guys in half-masks step out of the alley in front of her and another two pull up next to the one who was shadowing her. Five on one isn't the best set of odds she's ever had, but Barbara isn't about to start crying. Like that would help.

"Who's this?" one of them asks, taking a step closer. Barbara shifts her grip on her gym bag. "You're out late, girlie." She is obscurely disappointed that he didn't come up with a better line. Still, she doesn't wait for anybody to draw a gun or a knife, snapping the duffle bag up into the face of the first creep and then launching herself to the side to kick at the groin of the second one. Then she whirls, ready to assess what's going on with the other two --

\-- and there's a _fourth_ person back there, in clothes so dark the light seems to just fall into them, his face a pale slash above the collar and eyes hidden behind some kind of mask, reaching for two of them --

so she lets her spin carry her around and her leg comes up to kick the second one in the chest, right in the solar plexus, and the first guy's clawed the bag and its straps away from his face so she bulls forward with her head low to stomp on his instep and chop at the opposite hamstring and he falls forward. Behind her she can hear the meaty sounds of violence being done, so Barbara focuses on getting out of the way so the first guy can hit the pavement and turning back to the second one, lashing out with the heel of her palm to hit him in the ear, then scooping up her bag and darting out of the way --

\-- and then there's an arm around her waist and there's the sound of a firearm and something whizzing up over her head and suddenly she's being pulled _up,_ into the air and swinging over the ledge and onto the roof of one of the buildings.

It's exhilarating. And terrifying. She stumbles a little when he lets her go, but Barbara's always been quick on her feet. 

And there he is when she turns around. The Nightwing. 

John.

It's obvious now, standing here next to him. Barbara knows that jawline, that chin, those stupid pointy ears that turn red when he's embarrassed or a little aroused. She knows just how far up she has to look to meet his gaze, but she can't see his eyes properly in that mask. 

"Thank you," she says, and he nods but doesn't say anything. And somehow that's what makes her mad, that he knows the game is up but he can't speak and admit defeat. "So this is who Nightwing is. This is why you smelled like smoke on New Year's," she continues, voice whipped away by the wind that's kicked up here on the rooftop. Still nothing.

"You really think I'm so stupid I can't figure out it's you?" Barbara steps closer, right up into his personal space. To his credit he doesn't move. This close he smells like rubber and engine grease and something cold and metallic. There's a bruise rising up on his face and he's breathing shallowly.

"Let me guess. If I grab you for dinner tomorrow, you're going to mysteriously have taped-up ribs and a huge bruise, and you were going to tell me - what, that the boys decided to use you as a punching bag? That you fell down the stairs and into several doors? I'm not stupid, I just wish you'd told me." She probably wouldn't be this mad if the adrenaline from the thwarted mugging wasn't still coursing through her system. But he decided to save her and bring her up here. He didn't have to do that. It made him a target for her anger nonetheless. 

He stays quiet. He's good at that, he always has been. Barbara reaches up and skims along his jaw, touches his chin, brushes her thumb under his bottom lip, then lets her hand fall. 

"Keep your secrets. Don't trust me. But at least have a little respect for my intelligence."

When she turns away she hears the faint rustle of cloth and squeak of rubber, and she's alone. Barbara lets out a sigh edged with tears and heads to the edge of the building, looking for the fire escape. She wants to be well away from here before the thugs decide they want to try their luck or any of the neighbors get the wild idea to call the police.

It's probably the height of stupidity that she goes out looking for him the next night.

But after twenty-four hours of waiting for him to call or text, twenty-four hours of trying to figure out what she should say or do, going to the source of the problem seems like it makes the most sense. She's not going to break into his apartment again, and she's not going to wait for him on the steps of the Wayne mansion. 

So she pockets her dad's emergency radio that's also hooked into the police scanner, and puts on dark clothes and ties a scarf around her head, and sets out on her scooter. The scanner crackles comfortingly next to her hand as she speeds through the darkened streets towards the Narrows. Barbara doesn't really have a solid plan to find him other than looking for a disturbance and figuring he'll show up there, and the area around the bridge is still chaotic even all these years after the Scarecrow and the fear gas. She ditches the scooter, pulls her scarf over her nose and mouth, and sets out on foot, her batons in her hands just in case.

It seems a bit odd to say that luck is on her side when she finds a big, organized group taking boxes out of a warehouse and loading them into an unmarked truck. She presses against the wall and hopes the shadows hide her better than she feels they do. 

The thieves continue to ransack the warehouse, long enough that she thinks they must need another truck. Long enough that she wonders if she should have called the cops by now. If he's not coming.

And then there's a faint noise of something ripping through the air and three of the thieves grunt and yelp, picking small projectiles out of their skin, and he swoops down in the middle of them with fists flying. She's running before she has time to think, batons out, striking kneecaps and ears and bashing one right across the base of the skull when he draws a gun. Nightwing is a solid fighter, belying his lean frame, using his long limbs to his advantage. Barbara doesn't have that but she makes up for it with her speed and her tumbling, vaulting in a handless flip over one of them and landing light on her feet and never ever stopping long enough for them to grab her. One of them manages to tug on her scarf and her hair spills loose but she can still see so she doesn't slow down, weaving under John's leg till they end up back to back.

"Nice of you to drop by," she says as they pause, leaning back into him to spring forward for more. 

It seems forever and no time at all till they're surrounded by prone forms on the ground, the truck idling and its driver slumped at the side of the cab. Nightwing slams the disabled alarm on the warehouse till it starts shrilling again, then pauses to look at the guard. Cracked across the head with a gun butt, it looks like, but still breathing. 

"You should get out of here," he growls, and Barbara has to suppress a laugh. It sounded so frightening coming from the Batman when she was a child. Coming from this successor it just sounds like a child trying to be the monster instead of the victim. 

"So should you. Come on, my scooter's around the corner."

He raises an eyebrow and jogs after her. When she pulls her scooter out from behind the dumpster he reaches over, and Barbara isn't sure what he's going to do until he tucks her hair back under the scarf. It's somehow both gentle and businesslike, not at all like his usual caresses.

"Meet you at my place. Fifteen minutes," he says. And then he's got that damn grappling gun or whatever the fuck it is, pulling him up and out of the alley. How irritating.

Barbara makes it back seventeen minutes later and the basement door is wedged open with another one of those projectiles - a slim piece of metal shaped like some kind of stylized bird - so she hauls her scooter in and chains it to a pipe before hustling up the stairs. God, she's exhausted now that the adrenaline's wearing off.

His apartment door is unlocked and he's standing there in the middle of the living room, still wearing the suit. But the mask is off and John is looking back at her, the expression on his face so mixed up that even she can't read it. 

"Thanks for having my back," he says finally. Barbara nods, walking over as she unwinds her scarf and shakes her hair loose. 

"You're welcome." She doesn't plan to let him do this alone anymore, she thinks, but he may not realize that yet. "So how do you get out of that thing?" 

He demonstrates, smiling a little at the awkwardness of the many catches and her joke about the skintight underlayer, and helps her stow it in his closet. This can't be the only place he's keeping it but she's going to let that go for now. Instead she has him help her get her clothes off even though she doesn't need the assistance. They wash up side by side in his bathroom, bruises turning an ugly green under the light. And then they go to bed, too tired for sex, but pleasantly exhausted just the same. 

It's dark and quiet in his room, light playing across the ceiling and disappearing into the dark hole of the open closet door. Barbara thinks back to that first meeting, to seeing him again in the diner, to the first time she kissed him and every time she told him she would keep his secrets. She watches John sprawl across the bed next to her, already sleeping peacefully as she rests her hand on his warm bare skin and listens to him breathe. 

_Just look at us now,_ Barbara thinks, and pulls him close, and sleeps.

**Author's Note:**

> Finally a sequel! Many thanks as ever to @momebie for cheerleading and beta services and to @ellen-paged from tumblr for encouraging me in this madness.


End file.
